The Legislature on Monday will get its first look at a bill that would require medical doctors on probation for serious offenses to inform their patients of that status. It is a bill that is long overdue and should be passed by lawmakers.

Sen. Jerry Hill’s SB 1033 is scheduled to be heard by the Senate Business and Professions Committee on Monday. It would be ideal if doctors would impose such a standard on themselves, but the state medical board last year turned down a formal request to require such notification.

So, Hill filed the bill.

This idea has been discussed on these pages before. The bill offers a transparency that is born more from common sense than it is from onerous government regulation.

Let’s be clear, this bill is not talking about frivolous nuisance complaints and suits that, unfortunately, happen all too often to doctors. It is aimed squarely at the physicians who have been through the process and have been judged by their peers to have committed serious offenses.

Physicians placed on probation by the Medical Board of California currently must notify their employers and the hospitals where they practice. So far, so good. We get that. But that is where things fall apart. There is no such notification requirement for patients, which keeps them in the dark. Surely, the patient is every bit as important to this process as the employer and a hospital.

For its part, the medical board has offered a clunky website where patients can fend for themselves as they try to look up their doctors. Most patients do not know about the site and, for those who do, it’s an inefficient system because only about one in 200 physicians is on probation.

Again, SB 1033 is not talking about minor transgressions. It only deals with serious breaches of standards, including repeated negligent acts with multiple patients; repeated acts of inappropriate and excessive prescribing of medication; drug or alcohol abuse that threatens the doctor’s ability to practice safely; and certain cases of sexual misconduct. Doctors who have been repeatedly put on probation would also have to notify their patients.

The doctor-patient relationship inherently relies on an implicit trust, so much so that it is famously protected within the law. It makes no sense to withhold such important and pertinent information from a patient.

This legislation simply puts into law a reasonable expectation of transparency.

There is no doubt there will be special-interest opposition, but the committee should ignore it and move SB 1033 to the Senate floor. The Senate and Assembly should send it to the governor and it should become law. It is the right thing to do.